City Diary

Merrills tackles its critics - by switching them off

Those sensitive souls at Merrill Lynch are so upset by the nasty things CNBC says about the bank that they're turning the TV channel off - permanently.

Around 20,000 stockbrokers in the US will switch the feed on their computers from CNBC to Bloomberg Television from next week.

CNBC hosts Lawrence Kudlow and James Cramer have been heard to suggest (how dare they?) that Merrills management should quit, and that the firm's involvement with Enron was a bad mistake.

Merrills, meanwhile, says the decision is in response to "popular demand".

A few clangers at the corporate gong show

Bugs have struck the Financial News Awards for Corporate Excellence; neither editor Peter Wilson-Smith nor Wendelin Wiedeking, president and chief exec of Porsche, could attend, so the latter failed to pick up his gong for European business leader of the year.

The guest of honour, BP's Lord Browne, braved an appearance despite his cold, though the smallest boss in the FTSE 100 may have coughed when his speech was introduced: "Lord Browne's been struck down with illness, so unfortunately he'll be shorter than usual today."

Among the winners were Invensys (I kid you not), which took away a (slightly battered) award, not for the biggest share fall, but for disposal programme of the year. The big prize of the day - European corporate of the year - went to Imperial Tobacco, whose shares enjoyed a 39pc rise last year while all those around them went up in smoke.

Still, the losers can always rely on the old jinxed-winner factor - last year's inaugural victor was France Telecom.

Power play at Cheltenham proves lucky for some . . .

Stewart Kenny, chairman of Irish bookies Paddy Power, was minding his own business in Ladbrokes' box at Cheltenham yesterday when his phone rang.

It was Mary Harney, the Irish deputy PM and one of the few members of the cabinet who wasn't at the Festival. Could she put £50 (not euros, I note) on Rooster Booster in the Champion Hurdle, she asked, having explained that the size of the stake was due to it being her 50th birthday.

Kenny gave her generous odds of 6-1, and she's been crowing ever since the Rooster romped home first.

. . . But unlucky for one that trailed at the Hurdle

Frank McKay, the Travis Perkins chief exec, didn't enjoy such good fortune in the Champion Hurdle.

His confidence yesterday that his horse Flame Creek could take the £174,000 prize was as misplaced as the nag was unplaced. It came an unlucky 13th - out of 14 finishers.

Betting on a long March to the end of the Central line

Freddie Tulloch didn't take long to resurface.

When he last appeared here at the end of January, the voice of Financial Spreads was giving up work to prepare for impending fatherhood. It's still impending, but he's popped up at IG Index.

"Do you know what all the traders are doing when they're not at Cheltenham?" he asks. "They're fixing a spread on when the Central line will be up and running again."

The current spread is 44-49 days from today - based, Tulloch explains, on the fact that "when you ring up London Underground, they say the end of March."

Share issue that's no small beer

Haerle brewery has shown some entrepeneurial cunning in the German town of Königseggwald (try saying that after a litre of Haerle).

Needing $800,000 to save itself from bankruptcy, the brewery came up with the idea of issuing 1,600 new shares at $500 apiece, with the promise of five cases of beer as a dividend. At a retail price of $11.50 each, that works out at a pretty decent annual return of 11.5pc.

Most of the shares were bought by local residents. I hope they did the maths before tackling the dividend.